 at the core of democracies are elections, essentially, because they allow citizens to elect their leaders. Also, it is through elections that citizens get the opportunity for popular participation in a democracy. Now, having been a democratic state since 1999, Nigeria is no stranger to the elections. I like conduct CBR to allow eligible Nigerians who reach voting age, that is 18, after the last registration exercise to register and to vote. Without the CBR process, a decent part of the population would be disenfranchised between electoral cycles. Now, it's been six months after the conduct of the 2023 general elections, and I like is still conducting its review of the just included elections. This, however, has hampered the implementation of sections of the electoral act that stipulate that voter registration should be continuous. Joining us to discuss this is Ibrahim Parruqi, is a member of the Democracy Network Nigeria, and he's also of Yaga Africa. Thank you so much for joining us this evening, Ibrahim. Thank you so much for having me, Mariana. It's interesting that just in my last conversation with my guests, they may mention thank you very much. I'm sure you're referring to section 10 of the electoral act 2022, which states that there shall be continuous voter registration of everyone who is qualified to be registered as a voter. And there are some very key provisions within that section of the electoral act. One of them is around continuous voter registration. And our understanding of the word continuous means it's a process that must be ongoing over and over again. Continuous does mean start and stop at various intervals. It means that throughout the electoral process, there must be continuous voter registration. However, if you remember that in the lead up to the 2023 general elections, the independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had depulated a time period for continuous voter registration. And that was between June 2021 and July 2022. My understanding is that that is not truly continuous. And it is important for us to point out to INEC that there are provisions of the law. So these are not some kind of policy recommendations that are not enforceable. These are legal requirements within the electoral act that was driven by citizens that was signed by former President Mohammed Ubu Harry. So as a democracy network, we're telling INEC essentially that it is important to ensure that this is a continuous process. And it's not just a process that takes place 13 months sometime within that four year election cycle. It's also very important to note that the electoral act stipulates that voter registration should close 90 days before the general elections. However, registration closed more than six months before the general elections. What that means is that 18 year olds, any Nigerian who was qualified to be registered as a voter for the 2023 elections. So if you turned 18 in August for instance, you did not have an opportunity to register for the 2023 general elections and basically you have been disenfranchised. What I say is that the 2023 general elections have come to a close. It is time for INEC to reopen the continuous voter registration process so that every qualified Nigerian who is 18 years old who fulfills all the requirements to be registered as a voter has that opportunity to register and vote. It's interesting that you have come up with this because aside from young people, there are several people who have also never voted in the allies. From last election, I was very shocked to meet a 45 year old, a 50 year old, who had never voted in the allies, who had never felt the need to pick up their voter's card and vote. Again, if INEC had been on their mandate or stood on their mandate to use that word, to continuously open the portal or make it make itself accessible to people to just walk in, register and of course get ready to get their PVCs, would we have people such as these? I mean because I was really shocked that people like this existed. But then let's go back to young people, universities, secondary schools. How do we catch these people young? How do we even sell the idea of picking up PVCs you are registering to vote, owing to what we saw in the last election which broke a lot of hearts? Hearts were definitely broken post-2023 general election. But if you cast your mind back, you would see that there was a lot of enthusiasm, there was a lot of excitement in the lead up to the 2023 general election. And I think it's important that advocacy by civil society organizations, by media organizations, by networks such as the democracy network, Demnet that we have in Nigeria are reaching out to groupings of young people. So this includes university communities, national youth service corps, wherever we can find large groupings of young people to ensure that we sustain that momentum that we saw leading to the 2023 general elections. There's data that shows us that every year between 4 to 5 million Nigerians attain the age of electoral franchise. That means every year about 4 to 5 million Nigerians turn 18. But do these young Nigerians have the opportunity to register as soon as they turn 18? Or do they have to wait until INEC decides that there's a 12 month period or a 13 month period? So what we're doing with our advocacy is working with INEC as a partner to push this conversation and this advocacy message around a truly continuous voter registration process. But also on the other side is working with young Nigerians, whether they are in the campuses of tertiary institutions, whether they are in the national youth service corps, like I said, whether it's young people in urban areas or in rural areas in school or out of school to sustain that momentum and that pressure, that advocacy area, you can come out to register and vote as soon as you turn 18. I understand that there is a petition that you'll be floating soon for a lot of people to get involved and signed. What is the target? Do you have a target of how many signatures that would get you to get the attention of INEC and maybe the government in power? And again, what is your level of engagement with political parties? Because we also know that these political parties have youth swings just as they have women's wings and these wings become very active before the elections, during campaigns, et cetera, et cetera. But how do you target them now before the whole hysteria of campaign season? It's actually very important for us to target those groups now. So our advocacy efforts are going to be cross-cutting. Like I mentioned, working and partnering with the Independent National Electoral Commission, with the various political parties. One thing that I've maintained over and over again is that the biggest beneficiaries of our electoral process are political parties and the politicians. It is not civil society organizations. It is not our friends and partners in the media who have their names or their symbols on the ballot paper. It is political parties and political parties who are serious about winning election and ensuring that they have a legitimate mandate must also be interested in ensuring that we have an inclusive voter register. And this means young people who are eligible to vote. One of the strategies that the Democracy Network, the Net Nigeria is going to be employing is using online petitions and their petition platforms such as change.org, where we can launch a petition and would work with the change.org team to say how can we ensure that we get as many petitions as possible, that this would grab the attention of the Independent National Electoral Commission. It would grab the attention of political parties. It would grab the attention of various stakeholders, whether it's also other civil society organizations, media organizations, the police, anyone who is part of that election process to say how can we get on board with this message to ensure that anyone who has turned 18, as soon as you turn 18, you're eligible to register. For me, it doesn't take too much for INEC to be able to get this done. INEC has purchased the machines that it uses for voter registration and that are also used on election day. INEC has offices in all the 774 local government areas in the country and area councils in the FCT and they are staffed, they are manned. So the question around manpower to ensure that voter registration is continuous should be a non-issue. INEC also has the online portal that it's used leading to the 2023 general election, all of the infrastructure to ensure that Nigerians who turn 18 or those who have never registered to vote before have the opportunity to do so is already in place. What is needed now is the political will, the push from INEC to ensure that this process is in place. Lastly, definite Nigeria obviously seems relatively new in Nigeria and of course I'm wondering to myself how could this have flown under the radar all of these years as we're campaigning, pushing for use, making promises to young people. This really flew under the radar. The EU observatory team that was here to cover the elections also in the observation in their reports made mention of the fact that there has to be in fact that we have to put pressure on INEC to make sure that there's continuous voter registration. It's surprising that outsiders had to come tell us, point out some of our major issues. I'm surprised again as I said that this could have flown under the radar for so many years. I'm grateful that you guys are coming up with this great idea to push for INEC to do it, but do we see INEC caving to this advocacy knowing also that INEC gives the excuse that all the reason why they close and open the puzzle at will is because they're trying to clean up the register and so that they do not have multiple registrations and take out all the people who no longer exist etc etc. These excuses will they hold sway as your advocacy continues? Like I mentioned these excuses will not hold sway because all of the infrastructure that INEC needs to ensure a truly continuous voter registration process is already in place. After previous elections there have been attempts to work with INEC to make the continuous voter registration process truly continuous. However there haven't been any significant efforts towards advocacy targeted at INEC and targeted at other young people across the country. So even though DEMnet is a new network which was formed early this year in January following a conference where different civil society organizations across Africa came to discuss participation in electoral processes and this gave birth to the network in Nigeria and in many other countries. We can see the importance of it. You mentioned that it was also a recommendation in the European Union Election Observation Mission report and one of the things that that report says it's important to have a truly inclusive register and to ensure that everyone who turns the legislation is on ground. So it is not a matter of legislation the infrastructure exists. So while we conduct advocacy to INEC we also see INEC as a partner in progress while we do this work to ensure that they are on our side and they understand the importance of this. In your introduction we spoke about the importance of the electoral process and one of the hallmarks of this good process is to have a credible voter register. Mm-hmm it must be important please. Well I want to say thank you Brahim unfortunately we have to go I wish we had more time to continue to talk about this but Brahim Farouk is of DEMnet Nigeria which is also called the Democracy Network Nigeria. Good luck with the advocacy and we're hoping that you continue to push for this, to this voter registration. Thank you so much for coming on the show. All right that's the show tonight. I want to thank you all for participating. Don't forget you can play catch-up with all our episodes just go to Plus TV Africa or Plus TV Africa lifestyle on YouTube. I am Mary Ann and tomorrow we'll be back with more stories talking for development. Have a good night.